Chapter 2: It Never Ends, Part II

Christmas Day, 1984, Indianapolis, Indiana

Mr. Krajick collapsed into his chair and I felt nauseated and faint. I grabbed the back of a chair and felt an arm grab me to steady me. Ed turned pale as a ghost. Doctor Barton continued.

"We managed to get it going again. The problem is, we don't know why it happened. The on-call cardiologist is with her right now. As soon as I know more, I'll come back."

"Does she have a regular heartbeat again?" I asked.

"Yes. Honestly, it's as if nothing happened. The rhythm is exactly like it was before it stopped."

"How long?" I asked.

"Less than a minute. She's still on the ventilator, so breathing wasn't an issue. All things considered, it shouldn't have a negative effect, in and of itself. The problem is figuring out why it happened. It could be the head injury. It could be the chest injury. It could be something that we've missed. It could be from the drugs we've given her. I just don't know."

"Thanks for being honest with me again, Doc," I said.

"Steve, I think that you may have missed your true calling!" he said. "Now, I have to go."

He turned and went to the elevators. Kara, who had grabbed my arm to keep me from toppling over, helped me into a chair.

"Does this ever fucking end?" I sobbed, completely overcome by emotion.

Kara and Kathy both put their arms around me and held me while I cried. I simply let it all out and about ten minutes later, I composed myself and actually felt a lot better. Kara handed me some tissues from her purse and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. I got up and dropped the tissues in the trash, then went back to sit down.

"I still need to eat," I said. "I don't feel like it, but if I don't eat, I'll just make myself sick. But I don't want to leave."

"I'll go to the cafeteria," Kurt said. "Anything in particular that you want?"

"Just pick something that looks edible," I sighed.

I fished out my wallet and handed him some money. Kathy went with him and Kara stayed with me. Mr. Krajick sent Ed to the hotel to wake up Nora and have her come to the hospital. I just sat in the chair, staring blankly into the distance, not focusing on anything. I looked at the pictures of Bethany in my wallet and tears welled up in my eyes again. For all the hope I'd had earlier, now I felt only despair. What would I do without her if the worst happened?

Kurt and Kathy were back with sandwiches, chips, and lemonade. The ham and cheese was passable, but not great. I quickly ate my lunch and finished my drink. Kathy offered to get coffee, and I gratefully accepted.

"I was supposed to call Karin and Sofia today," I said. "I think I'll call my sister and have her make the calls. From the payphone it would cost more than $4.00 a minute to tall overseas! Did you want to go see your mom, Kara?"

"I'm staying with you. Mom will have to deal with it. I do need to call her, though."

We got up and went to the pay phones and I called my little sister. I explained that I needed her to call Sofia and Karin and let them know why I hadn't called, and she agreed. I also asked if she'd call Jennifer and let her know that I'd call her later in the day. Then I told her about Bethany.

"No!" Stephanie shrieked.

"Squirt, they're working on her. They have the experts they need, and Doctor Barton is the best in the city. Just have faith, OK? I'm scared, but I have faith."

She sighed, "Do you need me, Big Brother?"

"Always. But right now, I have Kathy and Kara right here. I'll be fine. Make the calls for me, please? I'll call you with any updates."

"You better!"

"I love you, Steph," I said.

"I love you too, Big Brother," she sighed.

I hung up just as Kara was finishing her call to her mom. Her mom wasn't happy, but understood, and hadn't really given Kara a hard time. We went back to sit down and a few minutes later, Kathy arrived with our coffee. I gratefully accepted the large Dunkin' Donuts coffee and sipped carefully. It was going to be a long few days, and even then, Bethany might not be out of the woods.

It was three hours before Doctor Barton came back to see us. This time, he asked us to follow him to the elevator and Bethany's parents and I went with him to his office.

"Have a seat. I'll go over what we know and what we want to do," he said.

"First off, she's right back where she was before the cardiac problem. The cardiologist did a complete workup and is attributing the dysrhythmia to myocardial contusion — a bruise on her heart. It's not uncommon for symptoms to present in a delayed fashion. He saw a minor issue on her EKG and he's reasonably certain that it's all related to the chest injury. All we can do right now is keep an eye on it, watch her EKG, and respond to symptoms that present. The longer she goes without another incident, the more confident we'll be.

"For her other injuries, the thoracic surgeon wants to do a surgical repair of her ruptured diaphragm, and realign her ribs. The conclusion is that if she doesn't have another cardiac incident, we'll do that surgery first thing tomorrow morning, because that's a major part of the problem. Her skull fracture will knit by itself, and it doesn't appear that there are any fragments. There is no swelling at this point, and that's a good sign. The repairs on her liver are holding. Her bruised lung will be painful, and once we've completed the surgery, we'll give her some anti-clotting drugs. I'd like to give those to her now, but that would cause trouble when we go into her chest and abdomen.

"Her lower left arm is badly broken, as I said. The orthopedic surgeon says he can repair it, but we can't do that for probably another week. She'll need some rods, plates, and screws, and might end up with some permanent metal hardware in her arm. The arm is splinted for now. The orthopedic surgeon is fairly confident that after he repairs it, she'll regain most, if not all, of the use of her arm, though it will be a lengthy rehab period."

"The bruises and lacerations she has are going to heal. I don't believe she'll have any visible scars on her head or neck, though she'll have one along the top of her head. That will be invisible once her hair grows back. There isn't much we can do for all the scars on her chest and stomach. I'll have a plastic surgeon look at her, but the extent of the trauma surgery was such that even the best cosmetic surgery won't eliminate the evidence. Any questions?"

"When will you bring her out of the coma?" her dad asked.

"We'll evaluate that after the chest surgery. A flail chest is very, very painful, even breathing hurts. Her arm will be even more painful. So, even when we bring her out of the coma, she'll still be heavily medicated. My goal is to get her off the ventilator and out of the coma as quickly as possible after Doctor Hicks fixes her diaphragm."

"What about having kids?" I asked.

Doctor Barton smiled, "As best we can tell, there are no reproductive issues. She has a nasty bruise on her hip and knee, but no damage to her pelvis. When we did the emergency splenectomy and liver repair, I didn't detect anything that would contraindicate childbearing. I'm not an OB/GYN, but I'd say she'll be able to have kids naturally. That said, if you two are sexually active, that's on hold for several months, maybe as many as six, depending on recovery and rehab."

"You sound optimistic, Doctor Barton," Harry Krajick said.

"Credit your future son-in-law here. He's been nothing but positive since I met him. I'm telling you; sometimes it has nothing to do with my skill and everything to do with God, or Fate, or whatever you believe in. Could things go badly? Yes. Her heart is the real concern. Everything else depends on that. If there is no repeat, then yes, I'm optimistic. Your daughter is going to have a hell of a time in recovery and rehabilitation, but she's a fighter. And she has a great support team here in her parents, her brother, her boyfriend, and her friends."

"What about moving her to Cincinnati?" Nora Krajick asked.

"She's going nowhere for weeks," Doctor Barton said firmly. "Moving her would be asking for trouble. I would recommend that she stay here until she's released, and then you can take her home. I doubt you'll want to do rehab here, so I'll recommend someone in Cincinnati when the time comes."

"When can we see her?" Nora asked.

"Mrs. Krajick, I'd wait," I said, putting my hand on her arm.

"It's that bad?" she asked.

"Yes," I said simply, but firmly.

"If you want to go," Doctor Barton said, "I can take you. But I'll tell you that even Steve, with his attitude, almost lost his lunch. It's up to you."

"Honey, why don't we wait until after the surgery," her dad said gently.

"What time do you plan to do the surgery?" I asked.

"6:00am. I won't be doing it, but I'm going to watch in the surgical amphitheatre with my students. Want to join us?"

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Sure. I think you can handle it."

"Then yes, sign me up," I said.

"Be downstairs at 5:00am. I'll send one of my students to get you."

"Thanks, Doctor," I said.

"I'll remind all three of you to get enough sleep. You can't do anything for Bethany right now. And she's going to need you all when she wakes up."

We all nodded.

"Steve, would you lend me those pictures of Bethany? I want to show the other doctors and the nurses what she looks like. I promise you that I'll get them back to you tomorrow morning."

I slipped the pictures from my wallet and handed them to Doctor Barton, and then he walked us back to the elevator and we went down to the waiting area. I let Kara know about the opportunity to witness the surgery in the morning.

"I don't know if I should say 'cool' or 'gross'," she said.

"Yeah, I'm a bit uneasy, but Doctor Barton seems to think I can handle it. And I'll feel better being there. I wish I could hold her hand, but that's just not going to happen."

"Are we going to hang out here for the rest of the day?" she asked.

"I think right now I'd like to take a walk," I said. "It's a bit chilly, but I need to get some fresh air. Are you up for a walk?"

"Yes," she said.

We walked for about thirty minutes before returning to the hospital. There hadn't been any changes and Harry Krajick had gone to get some sleep. Ed was still there, sitting with his mom, but he looked like he was about to collapse. I hoped that he'd get some sleep, but that was up to him and his parents. We went to sit with Kurt and Kathy.

"We talked it over and we're going to go back to Milford," Kathy said. "As much as I want to be here, we can't do anything for her and it's going to be days before I could see her."

"That makes sense. I'm staying, though I have to figure out what to do about Jennifer, because she's flying in to Chicago on Thursday."

"Why not have her change her flight and come here?" Kurt asked. "Or just have her take a puddle-jumper from Chicago?"

I chuckled, "Why not? I can be pretty dense sometimes."

"Weren't you the one who said 'one crisis at a time'?" he asked with a smile. "That's what your friends are for."

"I'm going to call her," I said. "I need to get some change, though."

I went to the cafeteria and sweet-talked the cashier, a lady about the age of my grandmother, into making change for the payphone despite the note saying they couldn't do it, then went back and dialed Jennifer's number.

"Merry Christmas, Jen," I said.

"Bah humbug!" she said grumpily. "How's Bethany?"

"In bad shape, but I think she's going to make it. The doctor is more optimistic today than yesterday, though we had a scare earlier when her heart stopped."

"Her what?!" Jennifer shrieked.

"Her heart stopped," I replied. "But they got it started up again somehow. They think it's a bruise on her heart. She's most likely having surgery to fix her diaphragm in the morning, so that tells me that she's stable enough to start fixing all the problems. I'm calling because I want you to come to Indianapolis. Book a one-way ticket from Chicago to Indianapolis. I'll reimburse you. We have a hotel room here."

"Are you sure you want me to come?" she asked. "I'm not going to be very good company."

"Yes, I'm sure. I want to talk to you, Jen. My sister said you were pretty down."

"What the fuck do you expect?" she said angrily.

"Come see me," I said firmly, but with love. "You need me right now."

"I do," she sighed. "OK. How do I get in touch with you?"

"Call my sister. She's going to pick you up at the airport. Just make sure she knows it's Indianapolis and not O'Hare!"

"Got it. See you Thursday," she said.

"Jen, remember I love you."

"I remember," she sighed.

We said 'goodbye' and hung up. I went back to where Kara, Kathy, and Kurt were, and we said our goodbyes. I hugged both of them, and Kathy gave me a quick kiss. Kara and I walked them to Kurt's car, and then we went back inside to let Nora Krajick know that we were going to the hotel to eat. I'd have preferred elsewhere, but given that it was Christmas Day, not much was open. We'd been lucky that the Dunkin' Donuts was open, but I assumed that it was because it was right near the hospital.

The hotel was serving two 'Christmas Special' meals, and I opted for the sliced turkey with all the trimmings over the honey ham. Kara wasn't as hungry, so she had a chicken Caesar salad. For dessert, we shared a piece of chocolate triple-layer cake with vanilla ice cream. After I signed for our dinner, we went back to the hospital.

"Kara and I are going to go back to the hotel and sleep," I said. "I'll be back here tomorrow by 5:00am for the surgery."

"Thanks for everything, Steve," Mr. Krajick said, then smiled, "Oh, and is there something you need to ask me?"

I chuckled, "Doctor Barton made a huge assumption. Bethany and I have indeed talked about that, at length, but we delayed any decision until Summer after we both graduate and she moves to Chicago."

"You know we approve," he said with a smile. "You've been there for our daughter for nearly eight years now."

"Right now, I'm focused on her recovering," I replied. "Everything else will have to wait."

We shook hands, and Kara and I headed back to the hotel. We took the elevator up to our room and I sprawled on the bed.

"How are we going to handle things when Jennifer is here?" she asked.

"She and Stephanie can share a room. I don't know Jennifer's state of mind, but before the blow up with Josie, she wasn't interested in sex with me one-on-one, and you certainly are NOT going to be involved in a threesome!"

Kara giggled, "You never know!"

"Kara, that would be foolish," I said.

She got on the bed and stretched out next to me.

"I know," she said softly. "But in all seriousness, how bad are things with Jennifer?"

"Bad. She might be drinking again. She growled at me when I wished her a Merry Christmas. Before her accident, Bethany was worried about Jennifer's mental state."

"This is just so messed up," Kara sighed.

"Elyse said the same thing. She wanted to rewind the clock and get a 'fucking do-over' on the whole week."

"How are you holding up?" she asked.

"You saw me bawl like a baby earlier. But I'm trying to hold things together for everyone — Wen, Bethany, and Jennifer."

"I can understand you crying before, Steve. You needed to let it out. It's good for you. But I watched you with Wen, and at the hospital. You've become a rock for your friends, including me. I know you did it for Bethany when she was younger, and now you're doing it again for her. I know how it feels to get that kind of support."

I sighed, "But can I actually do it? What if I screw up? It's one thing to mess up my own life, it's another to mess up someone else's."

"If you can't accept that kind of responsibility, you shouldn't have kids, Snuggle Bear. With anyone."

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. She was right. That would be the biggest challenge of my life. Messing up there would have far-reaching impacts. My own life was a perfect example of that. My mom had messed up badly, and all of us had paid the price in one way or another.